Workplace Calisthenics: Government needs to show evidence before attacking Iraq

Cal LeMon, of Executive Enrichment Inc., solves organizational problems with customized training and consulting.

It really is all about trust, not weapons of mass destruction.

The dank, underground caves that are allegedly sheltering metal drums of cyanide gas, vials of smallpox and stacks of nuclear warheads may be silently waiting for a terrible tick of Saddam's clock when the streets of Los Angeles, Denver, Springfield or New York City will be turned into Armageddon.

There has been no "smoking gun." Instead, we have a water pistol of shell casings that did have traces of chemical residue.

Do we risk 150,000 military lives, a wider war with Muslim Arabs and increased terrorists activity over "traces"?

If you are my age (somewhere between midlife crisis and Depends), then you will remember the "Tonkin Resolution." We have learned, in the past few years, that this legislative charade was nothing more than a trumped up justification for some hell-bent patriots who were out to teach "them" some lessons by kicking some foreign butt.

That bravado cost us 58,000 lives and cost southeast Asia 4 million people.

It really is all about trust.

Tom Brokaw said it best, "My assumption is the government knows something that we do not."

Well, this would be a good time to tell us what we do not know. If our young men and women are about to fight in the streets of Baghdad and this nation will once again make thousands of children orphans, it is time we knew.

In 1991, it was a no-brainer. With Iraqi troops spilling over the border into Kuwait, the ethics of the moment were clear. When the Serbs were lining Muslims up and mowing them down with AK-47's into mass, open graves, our values vaulted into the fray.

Do 12 empty shell casing with traces of nerve gas in an Iraqi warehouse merit war?

With the information I have, I am joining about two-thirds of the American public that say war is not justified in Iraq. We loathe the guy with the cigar, shotgun and nine palaces. Saddam has a history of treachery, murder and deceit.

But we have to be careful with our righteous might. Do we have the right to make regime changes wherever we find evil?

It all comes down to trust.

We trust when we have seen another person or organization, over a considerable period of time, care for something or someone important to us.

I'm having a difficult time trusting the intent of our government over this pending war. Our government, we have learned, lied to us about bombing Cambodia, asbestos, Ruby Ridge, the addictive nature of nicotine and Monica Lewinsky.

In my more demented moments, my mind actually scans the possibility that this war is about oil, a diversion from a sick economy, a personal vendetta, an ego trip, a face-saving exercise, and the list goes on.

For me to wave the flag, drape my front door with red, white and blue bunting or put a sticker on my car that screams, "Together we stand" I need to see scud missiles tipped with nuclear warheads or detailed plans for the destruction of downtown Miami.

It does not happen often, but I genuinely hope to be embarrassed by this column. I hope there is information that the government has that, when released, will make all of us purveyors of peace wince. I pray that I will not be able to lift my head in this community because the evidence from Iraq was so conclusive and damning that my position was nothing more than dribble from the mentally decrepit.

Regardless of the news, this potential war is really all about trust.